00:00:04
[tense music] - When a murder's committed,
it's always a race against time
00:00:10
to find the truth, to
separate fact from fiction, to catch the killer, and to make sure that
justice is served.
00:00:20
What happens when the truth
vanishes with the victim? I'm Dr. Richard Shepherd, and
I've spent my entire career
00:00:26
as a forensic pathologist performing nearly
23,000 autopsies, including on some of the
most high-profile cases
00:00:33
of recent times. I've learned that the
dead don't hide the truth and they never lie.
00:00:38
Through me, you'll be hearing
directly from the victim. From a state-of-the-art
laboratory
00:00:44
with groundbreaking technology that uses digitally
scanned sample bodies. I'll be investigating a
series of intriguing murders
00:00:52
where, from the victim's
bodies, I'll be revealing to you the truth behind
those horrific crimes.
00:00:59
[camera shutter clicking] [gentle music] [phone ringing] - [999 Dispatcher] Hertfordshire
Police. How can I help?
00:01:16
- [Ian] My partner has
been missing since Monday and has not contacted anyone, so we've just decided
we should report it.
00:01:24
- [999 Dispatcher] What's
your partner's name? - [Ian] Helen Bailey. - Royston in Hertfordshire
is not the kind of place
00:01:32
where well-healed women in
their fifties simply vanish. So it was a surprise
when Helen Bailey,
00:01:38
a renowned children's author, was reported missing from home. She'd last been
seen walking her dog
00:01:45
on the 11th of April, 2016. But why would someone
who seemingly had it all and who was planning her own
wedding suddenly disappear?
00:01:56
- [999 Dispatcher] Can
I get your name please? - [Ian] Ian Stewart. - [999 Dispatcher]
We'll be in contact
00:02:00
with you shortly, okay? - [Ian] Okay. Thank you. - People that knew Helen
Bailey, her family and friends,
00:02:08
describe her as this very
warm, very kind person, but also someone who was
very witty, very funny,
00:02:16
with a wicked sense of humor. - There we go. Ready? - She was a hugely successful
author of teenage fiction.
00:02:24
Neighbors where she later
lived said she's very friendly, very open, invited everybody
around for coffee and a cake
00:02:29
when she moved in. Very down to earth, - There he is. You can
see that he does exist.
00:02:37
Oh, that wasn't supposed
to happen. [laughs] - [Richard] But Helen had been
through terrible heartbreak.
00:02:43
Her marriage of 15
years to John Sinfield had ended in tragedy. - Helen's husband John
died very suddenly.
00:02:56
He drowned whilst they were on
holiday in Barbados in 2011. - She was on the beach,
he was in the sea.
00:03:06
She heard him calling for help. She saw him disappear under the
waves, and he sadly drowned.
00:03:12
It must have been horrendous
for her to go through that. Almost unimaginable. - Helen started a blog
online called Planet Grief.
00:03:29
She talked about kind of
the difficulty of dealing with really everyday things
like buying a single scotch egg
00:03:35
in the supermarket or taking
out the bins on your own, week after week, and how
lonely that made her feel.
00:03:43
And I think writing the blog
was partly a way of her dealing with her own grief and
partly a way of reaching out
00:03:49
to other people going
through the same thing. And she was able to turn
her own experiences of grief
00:03:55
into something funny and also
something that other people could take great comfort in.
00:04:01
And I think a lot of that was because of the kind of natural
warmth that Helen Bailey had.
00:04:07
[gentle music] - Real life after death
is far more bizarre, more complicated, and
quite frankly, bonkers
00:04:15
than any fiction plot
that I could come up with. For many of us, this
reflecting on our relationships
00:04:22
is part of the process
of bereavement. - [Richard] Then in
October that year, eight months after her husband's
death, Helen met someone
00:04:35
through an online support group. He was a widower by the
name of Ian Stewart. - Helen met Ian online.
00:04:46
They were both part of
a bereavement group, and that's how they
came to know each other.
00:04:52
- So he himself was
widowed in 2010. He had two sons at that time,
would've been teenagers,
00:05:02
so, you know, shared
experience with Helen Bailey, both of them widows, so they would've had
a lot to talk about.
00:05:08
- I'd like to introduce
you to my new book, which is called "When Bad
Things Happen in Good Bikinis,"
00:05:13
subtitled "Life After Death,
and a Dog called Boris." - Helen spoke about
meeting Ian in her blog
00:05:21
and also in her book. She referred to him as her
gorgeous gray-haired widower, and at the end of her book,
00:05:28
she talks about having found
her happy ending with him. [gentle music] - [Richard] The fact
they both lost a spouse
00:05:40
seemed to draw Helen to Ian. Before long, they moved
into a house together in the Hertfordshire
countryside.
00:05:47
- Helen Bailey and
Ian Stewart bought a very large house together
in Royston in Hertfordshire.
00:05:55
It was worth one and
a half million pounds, decent amount of land around it, and Ian Stewart's two sons
moved in with them as well.
00:06:05
- [Richard] After
four years together, they were planning
their wedding. But then, on the
11th of April, 2016,
00:06:15
Helen suddenly and
inexplicably appeared. - Helen had been
Googling wedding venues
00:06:24
because Ian and Helen were
planning to get married. All of the people
that knew Helen said
00:06:30
it was completely out of
character for her to disappear. Her friends and family were
becoming very concerned.
00:06:37
They'd said they had
tried to contact her and couldn't get
in touch with her.
00:06:41
And at that point, Ian
reported her missing to police. [phone ringing] - [999 Dispatcher] Hertfordshire
Police. How can I help?
00:06:54
- [Ian] My partner has
been missing since Monday and has not contacted anyone, so we've just decided
we should report it.
00:07:03
- [999 Dispatcher] What's
your partner's name? - [Ian] Helen Bailey. - [999 Dispatcher]
Did she say anything
00:07:07
to you unusual at all? - [Ian] Nothing
before I went out, no. She just asked me
to run there for her
00:07:11
after I had been to the doctors. - In the 999 call, given
that this is four days
00:07:18
after he's last seen his fiance,
he sounds incredibly calm, almost to the point
of nonchalant.
00:07:25
- [999 Dispatcher] What's
her height initially? - Oh, I'm gonna guess here.
00:07:29
Well, she has told me,
but she's probably 5' 10. - [999 Dispatcher]
And her eye color?
00:07:34
- [Ian] Oh my God, how'd
you forget these things? - He sort of is almost making
light of the situation.
00:07:40
I think he says he can't
remember the color of her eyes. It just doesn't
come across as a man
00:07:45
whose fiance has been missing who knows what has
happened to her. - [999 Dispatcher] Is she slim?
00:07:52
- [Ian] Slim, yeah,
slim. That's easy. Well, she left a note, she said
in the note something like,
00:07:59
"I need space and time alone. I'm going to Broadstairs. In Broadstairs, we've
got a cottage down there.
00:08:08
- Ian maintained that she
had left a note saying that she wanted
some time to herself
00:08:14
and that he shouldn't
contact her. - [Richard] Ian
Stewart's account that Helen had gone to her
holiday cottage in Kent
00:08:24
didn't necessarily
ring alarm bells. - Her dog Boris had
gone missing too, and that was a perplexing
part of the puzzle
00:08:36
and played in to the idea
that maybe she had gone off somewhere with her dog
for some time on her own
00:08:43
because why would the
dog also be missing? - She's got a mobile
phone, she's got vehicles,
00:08:49
she's got a whole array
of support around her, and could she have gone away
for a short time on her own?
00:08:56
And the answer is
yes, she could. - [999 Dispatcher] And
can she interact safely
00:09:00
with other people? Would she be happy
going up to someone and asking for directions?
00:09:03
- [Ian] Oh yes. She's very
good at talking to people. - However, she would
be leaving a footprint.
00:09:09
She'd be leaving a footprint
by the movement of her vehicle and movement of her
mobile phone, a contact
on her computer,
00:09:15
and so on and so on. If she'd gone on the tube or
a flight out of the country,
00:09:20
she'll be recording a bank
transaction, buying a coffee, getting tickets or whatever,
00:09:26
but there was no transactions
by Helen on her bank account. - [999 Dispatcher] Leave that
with us for the time being
00:09:33
and we'll be in contact
with you shortly, okay? - [Ian] Okay. Thank you. - [999 Dispatcher] No
problem at all. Thank you.
00:09:37
- [Ian] Okay, bye-bye.
- [999 Dispatcher] Bye. - [Richard] With
no sign of Helen
00:09:53
a week after she was
reported missing, officers from Hertfordshire
Police Major Crime Team
00:09:58
interviewed Ian at the house. - That's where an investigation
would always start,
00:10:12
with the person who
last seen them alive, the time, the
place, the location. - It's at this point where
00:10:25
things start to
begin to build up. Ian Stewart was not supportive. He was not helping in
any way, so that's where
00:10:34
the concerns first start
to begin to surface. - The notes allegedly made
by Helen could not be found.
00:10:50
That in itself would
be a vital clue as to what's happened to her,
but it couldn't be found.
00:10:56
- Police had searched
the property at the time, didn't find her, didn't find
where she'd gone unexplained.
00:11:07
- [Richard] For three months,
there was no sign of Helen. No one had seen
or heard from her,
00:11:11
and there was no
answer on her phone. - Even bizarrely, he
went away on a holiday
00:11:17
for two weeks to Spain. Whilst all this is going on now. Is that really the actions
00:11:23
of someone who really
cared for his partner? Is that really the actions of
an innocent man? Don't know.
00:11:31
- [Richard] With no leads, police went back
to the house again, this time, with a
specialist search team.
00:11:40
- Some three months
down the line, a neighbor has tipped off that there's a
cesspit at the house.
00:11:47
- [Richard] The first time
police had searched the house, Helen's Jeep had been parked
on top of the entrance
00:11:52
to the cesspit, but this
time, the car had been moved. And in amongst the human waste,
00:12:02
police made a grim discovery. Police found Helen's body
hidden in human excrement
00:12:15
in the septic tank beneath
the garage at her house, but she was not
alone in that pit.
00:12:21
With her was her beloved
dog and a pillowcase. After three months
in those conditions,
00:12:27
decomposition can
be well advanced. It affects first the skin. The skin begins to become sodden
and soggy and to fall off.
00:12:36
Eventually, the underlying
muscles are affected too, and that can make a
post-mortem examination
00:12:42
really quite difficult. It can eventually result
in skeletonization of the whole body.
00:12:49
In this case, decomposition
have progressed to the point where the home office
pathologist couldn't be sure
00:12:56
whether Helen was alive or dead when she entered
the septic tank, but what he could
say with certainty
00:13:03
was that she didn't get
there through natural causes. - There's no way she
climbed in there on her own.
00:13:12
Someone has put her in there. She was murdered brutally. [eerie music] - [Richard] On the
15th of July, 2016,
00:13:36
police found the body of the
missing children's author, Helen Bailey, in the septic tank beneath
the garage of her house.
00:13:47
The entrance had been
hidden under a car and was only discovered after
a tip-off from a neighbor
00:13:53
three months after
Helen went missing. - Dealing with the actual
recovery of the body,
00:14:02
that would've taken
a number of days. It would need careful
extraction of the fluid
00:14:09
from inside the septic
tank and then excavation in and around the
actual tank itself,
00:14:16
and then people going into that
tank and removing the body. No matter how many
murders you've dealt with,
00:14:24
to deal with that
would be horrendous. [eerie music] - The body was showing evidence
of significant decomposition
00:14:36
after a period of
about three months immersed in this excrement. And a postmortem on a
body in that condition
00:14:42
can be extremely difficult. What's surprising is that
some significant organs
00:14:47
like the colon and
sometimes skeletal muscle can be so well preserved, they
can be thoroughly examined.
00:14:55
The secret of what
had happened to her was still hidden in her body, but the question of how
she had ended up in there
00:15:03
still had to be answered. Her fiance, Ian Stewart, was
the last person to see her.
00:15:14
- [999 Dispatcher] When was
the last time you saw her? - [Ian] Monday afternoon
about quarter of three,
00:15:20
20 to three. - [999 Dispatcher]
This may sound silly, but she's definitely
not a home, no?
00:15:26
- [Ian] No. Last night, I literally
checked everywhere. We have bought
quite a large house,
00:15:32
but I have literally
checked everywhere. - In the early stage
of the investigation,
00:15:36
he's a person of interest
as opposed to a suspect. - So you're going in with
an absolute open mind.
00:15:52
You're trying to
to find information and ask questions
about her movements, his movements, and all
that sort of thing.
00:15:59
In an effort to try to find
out what's happened to her. - [Richard] Police examined
hours of CCTV footage
00:16:15
and tracked Ian's movements
from the day Helen went missing. When Ian was seen
at the local dump,
00:16:20
getting rid of items
that included what
looked like a duvet. - Your fiance is missing
00:16:28
and you are down at the
dump getting rid of a duvet. Why would you be doing that?
00:16:32
And why would it happen
to be the same day that she was last seen alive? - [Richard] They then
started taking a closer look
00:16:39
at the couple's finances. - Helen was a very
successful children's author.
00:16:45
She was wealthy
in her own right. Certainly Ian's sons
always said that money,
00:16:52
as far as they knew,
had never been an issue for their dad either. - [Richard] Helen had
recently changed her will,
00:16:59
making Ian her main beneficiary. - Ian didn't work himself and Helen was concerned that
if anything happened to her,
00:17:12
he wouldn't have means
to support himself. So she made in the sole
beneficiary to her estate,
00:17:16
which is in excess
of 3 million pounds. There was also a huge
life insurance payment
00:17:24
that he would be in
receipt of should she die. - On the day that Helen went
missing, the 11th of April,
00:17:33
Ian Stewart logged on
to her bank account and changed a standing order that she had going
from her bank account
00:17:41
to their joint account from 600 pounds to 4,000 pounds. - [Richard] But despite
the suspicious activity,
00:17:51
it was only when her body was
recovered from the cesspit and samples were sent for
toxicological analysis
00:17:58
that it revealed the
truth about her death. Not much of Helen's
body remained
00:18:04
after three months
in the septic tank, but the toxicologists were
able to identify Zopiclone.
00:18:12
Zopiclone is a
powerful sedative. It's only available
on prescription and it's usually used
to treat insomnia.
00:18:20
And this was present in samples
taken by the pathologist at the autopsy from the colon,
00:18:25
which is the large bowel
sitting in the abdomen, and also for muscles that
are present in her thigh
00:18:32
on the front of the upper leg. Also present was Helen's hair. Hair is made of keratin,
the same chemical
00:18:40
that's used to make
fingernails and toenails. It's incredibly resistant
to decomposition.
00:18:47
Hair can also be the
pathologist's friend because we know
how fast it grows about a centimeter
per month in life
00:18:55
and into the hair is
incorporated all the drugs and chemicals that are
present in the body,
00:19:00
so it can act as a
record and a timeline for things that are
circulating in the blood.
00:19:07
And the toxicologist
report showed that Helen had been
exposed to the Zopiclone for several months
prior to her death
00:19:15
and at increasing
concentrations. Now, Helen didn't
have a prescription for the drug Zopiclone,
but someone else did.
00:19:25
Ian Stewart. - In the weeks before, Helen
herself had done some research on her computer to
research the effects
00:19:35
of just feeling drowsy,
feeling tired, feeling, you know, that she needed
sleep during the day.
00:19:41
What is clear in this
case, Ian Stewart had been administering
this strong sedative
00:19:48
for several weeks, if not months
leading up to this murder. - [Richard] Police also
recovered a pillow case
00:19:58
from the septic tank,
suspecting that Ian Stewart had used it to suffocate
Helen before dumping her body.
00:20:12
- [Richard] Ian
Stewart was arrested and his true nature
finally came to light. - Ian Stewart is
one of the clearest,
00:20:48
most unequivocal examples
of a psychopath that I think I have
ever come across. He is prepared to do anything
00:20:58
to accomplish the
ends that he seeks. This is the definition
of a psychopath. - What's intriguing
about Ian Stewart
00:21:09
is that I think the
potential to carry out these kinds of crimes
was always there,
00:21:16
but his upbringing, his
social circumstances, were such that it was
just never necessary.
00:21:23
But the potential,
make no mistake, the potential was always there. - He led the police down the
garden path for three months,
00:21:33
watching them conduct a
completely futile search for Helen Bailey whilst
knowing all the time
00:21:39
that he had put her
body in the cesspit underneath their garage. - There is no
emotion to this man.
00:21:45
So all he is is
calculation, strategy, manipulation to
get what he wants. There's no calibration
for the impact on others.
00:21:58
Everything is done
on an intellectual
and strategic basis. - [Richard] Ian was charged
with the murder of Helen Bailey
00:22:07
and at his trial
in January, 2017, he came up with a bizarre
story to explain her death.
00:22:16
- What he told us in
court was that two men called Joe and Nick
had come to the house
00:22:23
on the day Helen had disappeared and said that they were
business associates of her late husband John.
00:22:30
And the story sort of
spiraled from there. He said he saw
them several times. They would come to the house,
they would threaten him,
00:22:37
physically attack him, and that they gave him a
phone to contact them on and that ultimately, it was
them that murdered Helen
00:22:48
and them that put her
body in the cesspit. There were gasps from
the public gallery
00:22:54
as he spoke about this in court. - [Richard] The jury
didn't believe him. After a trial lasting six weeks,
00:23:03
they returned their
unanimous verdict after just six hours
of deliberation. In February, 2017, Ian Stewart
was found guilty of murder
00:23:13
and was given a life sentence with a minimum term of 34 years. - It's a very
challenging inquiry.
00:23:22
The lies and deceit
that Mr. Stewart offered during the course
of our investigation
really did hamper us.
00:23:28
- It was difficult to understand
Ian Stewart's motivations. He and Helen Bailey seemed to
have a happy life together.
00:23:36
They had a big house. They
didn't seem short of anything. She was busy planning
their wedding.
00:23:42
They were going to get married. He was busy planning her murder. It was hard to understand
00:23:48
what more he could
have wanted from life. - The judge said that it was a
financially motivated murder.
00:23:54
He did it for money. And you think how callous
that he's killed his fiance. He's put her in his cesspit.
00:24:03
Unimaginable how
somebody could do that. - When Ian Stewart's first wife
Diane Stewart died in 2010,
00:24:15
no one suspected foul play,
but after he'd been convicted of the murder of Helen
Bailey, police decided
00:24:23
to reinvestigate the
circumstances of Diane's death. - This is, without doubt,
the most extraordinary case
00:24:30
I've ever worked on
as a news reporter. - In the police interviews, I think he answers a
couple of questions
00:24:44
and then is just completely
silent and sort of snarls and shakes his head. - Had he not gone on
to murder Helen Bailey,
00:24:52
I don't see any reason why we ever would've
found out the truth about what happened
to Diane Stewart.
00:25:10
[foreboding music] - When the body of
Helen Bailey was found in the septic tank at her
home, the court concluded
00:25:21
that Ian Stewart had drugged and suffocated her
to gain her wealth. But Stewart's first wife
Diane had also died young.
00:25:32
And when the police
realized that Diane had been married to
a convicted murderer,
00:25:37
they decided to start
a new investigation into the circumstances
of her death. Six and a half years
after her death,
00:25:47
could Diane's body
still reveal the secrets of how she had died? - Diane Stewart's loved
by everybody that she met.
00:25:55
She was helpful, she was happy. She's the kind of person that people would be
visiting the house.
00:26:00
She had a wide
circle of friends. She worked at the
local primary school. She loved being part
of the local community.
00:26:10
- Ian and Diane lived in
a leafy Cambridge village with their two sons. - The neighbors I have
spoken to told me that
00:26:18
they seemed like a very
happy family, very quiet. Diane was a very lovely person.
00:26:24
No reason to think anything
strange was going on in their house. They had their two sons,
very proud of their two sons.
00:26:33
- They were at a
stage of their life that they didn't need the money, so they were able to do the
things that they enjoyed.
00:26:43
- All that changed when
Ian Stewart made a 999 call to the ambulance control. [phone ringing]
00:26:53
- [999 Dispatcher] Okay. Tell
me exactly what's happened. - [Ian] My wife's had a fit.
I think she's in the garden.
00:26:57
She's in the garden. - [999 Dispatcher] All
right. You need to slow down. - [Ian] She's in the
garden. She's unconscious.
00:27:04
- [999 Dispatcher] Okay. Are
you with the patient now? - [Ian] I'm just indoors at
the moment. I'm just going out.
00:27:08
- [999 Dispatcher] Can see
her from where you are? - [Ian] Yeah. Yeah. - Ian's account was that
he'd been to the supermarket
00:27:14
to get some things
for his eldest son who was having a driving test. Hopefully he had passed and
they'd be celebrating good news.
00:27:23
They were gonna have a little
sort of celebratory lunch. - [999 Dispatcher] Is she awake?
00:27:27
- [Ian] No. No, she's not awake. - [999 Dispatcher]
Is she breathing? - [Ian] No, I don't think so.
00:27:33
- [999 Dispatcher] You need
to go and check on her, sir, for me please. - He says he got
to the supermarket,
hadn't got his wallet,
00:27:39
he had to come back home and
there he found his wife Diane, unresponsive on the ground.
00:27:48
- [Ian] I've turned her to try
and put in recover position, but I can't do it.
00:27:51
She just got back. I
think she's had a fit. - [999 Dispatcher] You
think she's had a fit?
00:27:56
- [Ian] Oh, I think so.
She does have epilepsy. - [999 Dispatcher] But okay,
just bear with me a moment.
00:28:03
- At that time, he said that
she was suffering from epilepsy and that he believed that
she'd had an epileptic fit.
00:28:11
- He tried to
resuscitate her himself. When that didn't work,
he went over the road
00:28:16
to try and raise the
neighbor who was a doctor, but when he got no response
there, he came back to the house
00:28:21
and again, tried to
do CPR on his wife before eventually dialing 999. - [999 Dispatcher] Please listen
to me. We need to help her.
00:28:31
I am organizing help for
you now. Stay on the line. I'll tell exactly
what to do next.
00:28:35
You need to pump the
chest hard and fast at least twice per second. - It was then told by the
operator to conduct CPR.
00:28:44
- [999 Dispatcher] All right,
you need to start this, sir. - [Ian] Okay. Okay. - [999 Dispatcher]
Count out loud
00:28:49
so that I can count with you. - [Ian] Okay, I'll try. 1, 2, 3, 4. - [999 Dispatcher]
That's it. Well done.
00:28:56
- [Ian] 1, 2, 3, 4. - This went on for about
nearly half an hour before paramedics
and the air ambulance
00:29:03
arrived at the scene. - [Ian] 1, 2, 3, 4. - [999 Dispatcher] He's
letting you know he is there.
00:29:09
Has he stopped? Have they come? Okay, you keep doing what you
are doing until they're ready.
00:29:15
- Unfortunately, when
they arrived at the scene, there was no sign of life and
Diane was pronounced dead.
00:29:26
- [Richard] Ian told
everyone that Diane had died after having an epileptic fit,
00:29:32
but only Diane's body
could reveal the truth of what had happened to her. Epilepsy occurs when there
is uncontrolled activity
00:29:42
in the brain, and the brain
is the controlling system for all of the nerves
throughout the body,
00:29:48
through the arms and the legs
and the abdomen and the chest. When the brain has an epileptic
event, that control is lost.
00:29:55
There's a total
random discharge, often resulting in
unconsciousness and collapse
00:30:01
and sometimes even
resulting in sudden death. That sudden death may on
occasions be called SUDEP,
00:30:07
sudden unexpected
death in epilepsy. About a half a million people
have epilepsy in the UK,
00:30:12
but only about
600 die each year. And most of those suffer
from severe, convulsive,
00:30:20
regular epileptic fits. Diane didn't suffer
from fits like that. Diane's death was
attributed to SUDEP,
00:30:31
but in fact, she hadn't had
an epileptic fit for decades. She kept her epilepsy
very well-controlled.
00:30:39
This doesn't completely
rule out SUDEP as a cause of her death, but it does
make it much less likely.
00:30:49
- They were pushed
away from murder right from the beginning. The narrative was
set by Ian Stewart
00:30:56
that she had suffered
an epileptic fit. This story was being
pushed and accepted
00:31:03
and it was not challenged. Everybody has fallen for it. - [Richard] Any forensic
evidence that may have proved
00:31:14
otherwise was destroyed
at the crime scene by the paramedics trying
to resuscitate her.
00:31:22
- The difficulty is the
999 call gets put through to the ambulance control. The ambulance
control have clearly
00:31:28
got to consider the
preservation of life, and that's what their
main priority was.
00:31:36
From my perspective, from an
investigation perspective, if a person's died, that person themselves becomes
a very important crime scene.
00:31:45
The contact, the DNA,
the blood distribution, the movement of the body,
the movement of clothing,
00:31:53
all those are very,
very important to help identify what's happened
and identify who's done it.
00:32:00
How was that crime scene treated or was it ever
considered a crime scene? Probably not.
00:32:09
- [Richard] Because
there was no suspicion, only a routine postmortem
was carried out
00:32:13
to determine the cause of death. - A normal hospital
postmortem examination is significantly
different to a home office
00:32:23
forensic postmortem, which requires much more
detailed examination of the scene, examination
externally of the body,
00:32:33
and examination
internally of the body where every area of the
body is very minutely,
00:32:40
closely examined
at forensic detail. That's not carried out
at a hospital postmortem
00:32:47
where it's more of a routine
looking for a cause of death. There is a cost of course,
00:32:52
because a forensic postmortem
cost significantly more. - Her cause of death
was recorded as
00:33:01
being sudden death in
epilepsy, natural causes. You know, that's
it. Case closed.
00:33:08
- [Richard] Diane's body
was then released back to Ian Stewart, who
had her cremated.
00:33:15
- The truth is he
got away with murder. - [Richard] But now, six
and a half years later,
00:33:24
with the case reopened,
Ian's behavior at the time of his wife's death was
called into question.
00:33:30
- There were some concerns
about Ian's behavior after his wife's death. - Some people talked about
seeing Ian at the funeral
00:33:38
in describing him as
being almost aloof, just sort of distant, not coming across as a husband
whose wife had just died.
00:33:46
Ian Stewart received almost
a hundred thousand pounds, both in a life insurance
policy that paid out
00:33:52
and from bank accounts. - He even spent a lot of
money on an MG sports car. And that's not the attitude
that you would expect
00:34:01
someone who's a grieving
partner, you know? Why would he act in that way? - People think that
psychopaths are so clever
00:34:11
and to some extent,
they're right. They are. They've learn intellectually
how to carry out every role.
00:34:18
So in some ways, they're better
at carrying out those roles than people who are doing it
00:34:22
from any kind of
emotional basis. But what they're doing doesn't
come from any real place
00:34:28
and somewhere along the line,
that always gives them away. - [Richard] Despite all
this suspicious behavior
00:34:38
at the time of Diane's death, no one had questioned Ian's
account of what had happened.
00:34:47
But he had made one
very big mistake. - Diane was a very
public spirited person.
00:34:53
She had a donor card when
she died that was found. Part of it was she'd
requested that parts of her
00:34:59
be left to medical science. Among them were her brain. - He thought he'd
covered his tracks.
00:35:06
The body was cremated, but every contact leaves a trace and that trace was
left in her brain
00:35:15
that was still in storage. [gentle music] - [Ian] My wife
had a fit I think. She's in the garden.
She's unconscious.
00:35:35
- [999 Dispatcher] You
think she's had a fit? - [Ian] Oh, I think so.
She does have epilepsy.
00:35:39
- [999 Dispatcher]
Is she breathing? - [Ian] I don't think
so, but I've tried.
00:35:42
I've turned her to try and put
her in a recovery position, but I can't do it.
00:35:46
She's just flipped back. - When Ian Stewart's first
wife Diane died in 2010,
00:35:52
no one suspected foul play. It was only after he'd been
convicted of the murder
00:35:57
of Helen Bailey that
the police decided to reinvestigate the
circumstances of Diane's death.
00:36:04
[tense music] And there was a part of
her body that remained ready to tell the truth, no
matter how much Ian Stewart
00:36:13
had tried to cover his tracks. - Diane's brain was
donated to medical science.
00:36:20
And actually, it was Ian
who allowed that to happen. It had been stored in the
brain bank all that time,
00:36:26
over a period of six years. I think the option probably
would've been available to him
00:36:31
to refuse that, but
that potentially could have aroused
more suspicion. So at the time, that wasn't
a risk that he would take.
00:36:40
- [Richard] And Diane's
brain would hold a secret that to be missed during the
first postmortem in 2010.
00:36:48
A first pathologist examined
Diane's brain would've found no evidence to suggest she'd
died from an epileptic fit.
00:36:55
However, a second pathologist
had looked at her brain and found alterations. He'd found evidence that
her brain had suffered
00:37:03
from a prolonged
period of ischemia. Ischemia is where the
brain is deprived of oxygen
00:37:09
for a prolonged period of time. Oxygen normally gets the brains
it does to all of the organs
00:37:14
of the body through entering
through the mouth and nose, passing down into the
lungs through the trachea
00:37:20
and the bronchi, the oxygen
is then exchanged in the lungs and gets into the
bloodstream, goes to the heart
00:37:26
where it's pumped
back up the arteries. These red arteries
running up to all
00:37:31
of the organs, the
arms and the legs. But that's how oxygen
gets the brain. And a blockage in
either the blood supply
00:37:39
or the entry of oxygen
into the body itself through the mouth and nose, can cause ischemic
damage to the brain.
00:37:49
Now you don't get
ischemia in a normal, healthy breathing person and you don't get
ischemia in an individual
00:37:57
who's just had an epileptic fit. So the pathologist in this
case came to the conclusion
00:38:02
that Diane had been
deprived of oxygen for a period of between
35 minutes and one hour,
00:38:09
and that she had in
fact been suffocated. - Ian Stewart might have thought
he'd gotten away with this,
00:38:16
but his secret was revealed only by the examination
of the brain, which was absolutely crucial.
00:38:25
The body itself was the
evidence that convicted him. - When he's arrested, we see there's
apparent faux outrage.
00:39:17
We see this indignation
at him being arrested. Ian Stewart does
not think like us.
00:39:24
There is a genuine
reaction there, but it's a reaction
of irritation. It's annoyance at somebody
stepping in his way.
00:39:51
- The first paramedic
to attend the scene said that when he got there,
there were signs of CPR
00:39:56
that he'd expect to see
if it had been attempted. He said ribs can
pop, ribs can snap.
00:40:02
You'd expect to
see some injuries, none of which were present. You're on the phone,
you've got the call handler
00:40:08
instructing you how to do CPR. You are not seeing her
coming back to life. You would be giving it
everything you'd got.
00:40:15
But the paramedics saw no signs of injury to her body at all. - Both Helen Bailey and Diane
Stewart are both vulnerable.
00:40:41
They have childlike qualities. They're naive, they're trusting. They are his ideal victims.
00:40:49
And he will have
had a sixth sense. He will have been aware
that they did constitute
00:40:54
his ideal victims in that they
were so different from him, that in some ways they would not
00:41:00
have very readily
recognized the coldness, the calculated at
the heart of this man
00:41:07
because it was just so
different from who they were. - [Richard] In 2019,
while in prison serving
00:41:29
his life sentence for the
murder of Helen Bailey, Ian Stewart was charged
with Diane's murder.
00:41:37
He denied it, but in
court, the truth came out. - So it was a tense
dynamic in the courtroom
00:41:46
because of the stakes involved. There's a man on trial for
the murder of his wife.
00:41:50
Their two sons are there
in the witness box. Diane's elder sister was there.
00:41:56
They'd all been witnesses
for the prosecution and you are hearing
this horrible detail.
00:42:01
You know, they're
members of your family that you are hearing about and
what an awful thing for them.
00:42:10
- [Richard] On the
9th of February, 2022, Ian Stewart was convicted
and given a whole life order.
00:42:18
- A central part of this
second trial of Ian Stewart was the first trial, the death
of his fiance, Helen Bailey.
00:42:25
And the two cases
were put side by side so that they could see the
parallels in both cases.
00:42:31
This was a person in a
relationship with Ian. In both cases, they were
home alone together.
00:42:39
In both cases, their
consciousness had been reduced and they were then killed
potentially by smothering.
00:42:46
- [Richard] The
critical evidence was provided by Diane's body. The analysis of her brain
tissue indicated her death
00:42:55
was most likely to have been
caused by prolonged restriction to her breathing from
an outside source.
00:43:05
Suffocation can be caused
in lots of different ways, but basically, it's
blocking the mouth
00:43:10
and the nose with the hands, or using something soft
like a pillow or a cushion.
00:43:15
Sometimes the individual
will fight back. There may be
injuries to the arms as they struggle and push
against the assailant.
00:43:22
If the assailant sits on
them, there may be bruising to the chest or other injuries,
00:43:27
but none of those injuries,
those defensive injuries, will be present if
the person is sedated
00:43:33
and unable to fight back. It had been established
during the trial for Helen Bailey's murder
00:43:42
that she had been
sedated and suffocated. The fact that there was now
evidence in Diane Stewart's case
00:43:53
that she had suffered the same
fate wasn't lost on the jury. - So the jury were out
for just under two days
00:44:01
of deliberation in the
second trial of Ian, and they found him guilty
of the murder of Diane.
00:44:09
The second time he's been
found guilty of murder. - He has been sentenced
to a whole life tariff,
00:44:15
which means he will
definitely die behind bars. Whole life tariffs are
not given out that often,
00:44:24
and it reflects the
severity of his crimes. - The whole life order is
the most severe sentence
00:44:32
a judge can pass in a UK court. The perpetrator will
go to prison for the
rest of their life
00:44:38
and they will die in prison. That's how grave, how serious
the whole life order is.
00:44:45
[gentle music] - He's financially
very comfortable and yet he's gone on to murder
his fiance, Helen Bailey.
00:44:55
You think, why is it
that he's done it? He doesn't need the money. Is it greed? Is
it something else?
00:45:02
He's, for all intents
and purposes, got
away with the murder of Diane and yet
he's done it again.
00:45:08
Is it arrogance? [gentle music continues] - I think that because he'd
gotten away with the first one,
00:45:19
it may give him more
confidence in the second one. You know? I really do. - This is the seven bed,
1.3 million pound house
00:45:29
where Helen Bailey
lived with Ian Stewart. Helen's brother
John told the jury
00:45:33
that when he first got a
tour of the house from Helen, she joked that the
cesspit under the garage
00:45:39
was a good place to hide a body. - [Richard] Ian Stewart
might so easily have got away
00:45:47
with murder, not
once, but twice, but the bodies of his victims
eventually gave up the truth
00:45:54
that had been hidden. [tense music] [tense music continues]